Whence

 

On Pages 108 and 109 of his book, The True Believer, Eric Hoffer asks whence comes to impulse to proselytize. I quote him and then comment on his content.

 

Hoffer (H after this): “                              88

 

Whence comes the impulse to proselytize?

 

Intensity of conviction is not the main factor which impels a movement to spread its faith to the four corners of the earth: ‘religions of great intensity often confine themselves to contemning, destroying, or at best pitying what is not themselves.’ Nor is the impulse to proselytize an expression of a great abundance of power which as Bacon has it ‘is like a great flood, sure to overflow.’ The missionary zeal seems rather an expression of some deep misgiving, some pressing feeling of insufficiency at the center. Proselytizing is much more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest  proselytizing impulse.”

 

My response: Here is another Hofferian paradox: fanatics in a mass movement proselytize that their faith is the one and only legitimate holy cause, not because it is superior, but because it is inferior, so the backers have to convert everyone to convince themselves that their mediocre holy cause is as exceptional as they claim it is.

 

H: “It is doubtful whether a movement which does not possess some preposterous and patently irrational dogma can be possessed of that zealous drive which ‘must either win men or destroy the world.’ It is also plausible that those movements with the greatest inner contradiction between profession and practice—that is to say with a strong feeling of guilt—are likely to be the most fervent in imposing their faith on others. The more unworkable communism proves in Russia, and the more its leaders are compelled to compromise and adulterate the original creed, the more brazen and arrogant will be their attack on a nonbelieving world. The slaveholders of the South became the more aggressive in spreading their way of life the more it became patent that their position was untenable in a modern world. If free enterprise becomes a proselytizing holy cause, it will be a sign that its workability and advantages have ceased to be self-evident.”

 

My response: A mass movement is built on lies and guilt: the more cruel it is, and the more inferior are its arguments, the more its true believing adherents will fight for it, and the more they will spread it over the world, as if to justify their mediocre, corrupt holy cause.

 

H: “The passion for proselytizing and the passion for world dominion are both perhaps symptoms of some serious deficiency at the center. It is probably true of a band of apostles or conquistadors as it is of a band of fugitives setting out for a distant land that they escape from an untenable situation at home. And how often indeed to the three meet, mingle and exchange their parts.”